www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News French Priest thrown out of parish (has a girlfriend)

The conclusion I draw is that a man should keep his promises. If he can't keep a vow to God to stay true to his vocation, then he shouldn't be adding a vow to a wife to stay true to his vocation. Allowing priests to marry does not seem like a foregone conclusion to me.

Instead, allowing men who are faithful to their wives and good stewards of their households to become priests seems like a much wiser plan of action.

Again, let's be clear on this!

Neither East nor West allows this!

Dear Wondering,

BRAVO! Excellent!

Alex

Although I hope that the Roman Catholic Church will eventually permit married men to be ordained (other than priests who convert from other faiths and who already have wives), I figure that if you have taken a vow of celibacy, then you should stick to it.

People take the vows they make way too lightly. No vow is easy. If it was easy to keep ones word, we wouldn't need a vow.

Look at divorce (and remarriage outside the church) rates, even among allegedly practicing Catholics.

Pardon me, but I don't understand what you are saying.

Why do you call the vows taken by Western priests to live celibacy "enforced celibacy"? Are you saying that, ideally, nobody should take these vows seriously? What about celibate monks and priests in the Eastern Rites: don't they take their vows seriously?

Married people take a vow of exclusivity: is that forced monogamy?

Perhaps the policy of mandatory celibacy would have been a better choice of words. I am aware there are exceptions in certain circumstances.

I'm sure people who are given the choice of celibacy, and who choose that as an option, take that seriously.

This is not my issue however.

Hasn't this also been the case in Latin America, too?

OK.

And the policy of mandatory celibacy is a disciplinary issue, not a doctrinal one. But why do you call it "pointless and destructive"?

There have been reasons given by Rome over the centuries (above and beyond the question of Church property) for the policy, things like the ability of the person to witness to the way Christ himself lived, to be more able to pack up and move to other places quickly, etc. And one could argue that not all need be in such circumstances. Fine.

But, what is being destroyed?

Pointless in my opinion, because I have read all the arguments as to its superiority over a married priesthood. I don't agree with the arguments, and therefore don't see a point in making it mandatory. I'm not denigrating at all priests who choose celibacy, it's an amazing sacrifice, but I believe few have the ability to put in everything it takes to make that work. I also believe a married priest has his own advantages as well for serving a church.

Destructive, because I believe it has led to a fall in vocations and a loss of otherwise qualified people who can't or don't want to remain celibate. This lack of priests I think has a cascading effect in many areas; such as in my opinion the de-sacralization of the liturgy in many Roman Catholic parishes through the use of EME's, and/or priests shuttling between parishes to cover multiple flocks, or the sheer lack of contact between priests and their flock. I see and speak with my priest regularly, and he knows what's going in my families life. I have a RCC friend at work who says his parish has one priest for I can't remember how many families, but it was a staggering number. He has essentially no contact with his priest whatsoever. I simply can't imagine that working, or how people would stay connected to the church. What would kids do with no personal contact from the priest?

So to me, as I said, it's pointless and destructive. It's not my issue though, those are simply comments from an outsider. I know some people blame the whole pedastry scandal on celibacy, but I have no way of knowing whether that has any merit, so I'm not taking that in to account.

I was watching "Franciscan University Presents" on EWTN, I think last Sunday, and Scott Hahn made another dumb comment, that "Protestant Ministers have a 50% divorce rate. How much more scandalous would it be to have married priests with a 50% divorce rate?"

For some reason I don't think that EC and EO priests have a 50% divorce rate.

As a married priest, I have interesting reactions to this. To give you an insight -- let me say that my wife is a strong proponent of the celibate priesthood! (I am assuming that she is only half-way jesting.) Seriously, it is difficult to be a priest's wife. In my experience, I have found very few Bishops understand the struggles of a priest's wife and even fewer laypeople. As a result, the priest's wife often feels isolated and alone -- she is the only one who cannot really have a community of fellow believers. The priest has the Bishop and his fellow priests -- laypeople have other laypeople -- but there are few resources made available to the wives of clergy. So they suffer ... often in silence. This is especially true of converts who often do not even have an extended family to turn to for help and comfort. But in our day and age when priests often are removed far from their extended families, priests' wives are often left with no support at all.

I personally know of many priest's wives who have stopped attending church on a regular basis and who avoid having anything to do with the Church because of what they have witnessed and experienced. The same is sadly true of many of the friends of my own children who are also children of priests. Many of them try to stay as far away from the Church as possible.


Don't get me wrong -- I do believe that the married priesthood is an important part of the Church's tradition but I also think that the Church needs to think carefully about the way it supports (both financially and emotionally) the wives of priests. Often they have no training and have taken no classes to help them think through -- the priests go to seminary but what about their wives ??

Father Bless!

I am told that at the Sheptytsky Institute, where the UGCC sends many of their prospective seminarians, there is a good support system in place for the future Presbytera. I believe that there are even "classes" for the wives to take to help them assimilate.

But, really, this is our problem, the laity. We should be more respective of the Presbytera and what she has to go through.

It would seem that the people at the French parish were very supportive of the priest's mistress.

Wondering,
While I dont agree with what he did, dont be naive.
It happens all the time in South America, and Africa and is not even uncommon in Germany and Im sure it happens in many countries.
Stephanos I

I heard second hand about a strange comment by a Roman Catholic Priest made on EWTN about the reason EC and EO Churches do not traditionally offer daily Divine Liturgy the way Roman Parishes do.

This priest apparently said:

1) Married priests in the Eastern Churches are not suppose to engage in relations with their wives the night before the Liturgy (true as far as I know)
2) Since daily liturgy would mean that married priests would rarely engage in relations with their wives, they choose not to have a daily liturgy.

Again, I did not see the show first hand, but heard about the comments second hand- but on the surface, it sounds like an ignorant comment to me. But maybe I do not know?

What do others know about this? Did anyone else see the show my friend was talking about?

He suppose

Why would you call me naive to be scandalized by this priest's wanton and long-standing public immorality? Why are you not scandalized that he is not showing the least bit of remorse and is not even attending this church he dedicated his life to?

I don't care how many men fall into despair and turn their backs on their vows, their faith, or their God. What does that prove? That God should have a lower bar? What does their nationality prove? That there are men of all vocations all over the globe who are failing and in need of prayer. How else can we guide them out of their selfish sin than to raise the bar and provide holy examples for us all? If we lower it, it means this is the best we can expect. I, for one, expect more than that out of any man, much less a priest of God.

Call me naive if you wish, but what I think is simple is this: a man who can't control his own zipper for 22 years, and instead relentlessly pursues a long-term, on-going, publicly known, sexual affair outside of marriage and against a solemn vow he took to God Almighty in the presence of a bishop he swore allegiance and fidelity to should not be entrusted with the care of hundreds or thousands of souls. That goes for the South Americans, the Africans, the Germans, the French, the men of antiquity, the men of modernity, and the man on the moon.